Three years ago I wrote an entry here about successfully installing PageMaker 7 desktop publishing software in Windows 7. Well, now I am happy to report just a few, mostly expected problems in getting that software to work with the 64-bit version of Windows 8.
There are a couple of gotchas, but they were easily overcome.
There are a couple of gotchas, but they were easily overcome.
GOTCHA 1: Do not to try installing an Adobe postscript print driver in 64-bit.
However I did install Distiller 5.0 which then told me I needed a postscript print driver. I then saw that one of the options for a manual install of a printer to print to file was the MS Publisher Imagesetter so I selected that to print to file and PageMaker 7.0 created a PDF via Distiller with none of the problems I saw with Win7. The MS Publisher driver presumably came as part of the Office pack I have but I'd guess than anything which installs an imagesetter driver would work with PM. Other people's experiences welcome.
GOTCHA 2: You cannot run scripts in PageMaker on the 64-bit version of Windows.
PageMaker remains essential to me for opening old files, especially books created before the advent of InDesign. However it can also be tempting to use PageMaker for a simple DTP job that does not need the power of InDesign. I'm pleased therefore that it can remain in mu arsenal. Despite it now being relatively ancient in computing terms it is still on sale on the Adobe website for $499, about half the price of InDesign CS6.I suspect that PMscript.exe is a 16-bit program so if you need to run scripts, then 32-bit installation is the best you can aim for - probably via a program such as VirtualBox. However most of the Utilities in PM7 do continue to work.
GOTCHA 3: Do NOT install Adobe Type Manager. It isn't needed.Win8 is happy with postscript fonts. The fonts you need for templates are in a folder on the installation DVD named Fonts > Template Fonts. To install them in 64-bit Windows 8, just select the .PFM files of those you want, right click and select "Install". There are many other fonts in the Fonts > Extra Fonts folder.
As regard to PageMaker 7.0 and Windows 7 I found out by chance, that you shall not try to install the program. Just copy the entire PageMaker 7 folder from your old installation (for instance XP)and then click the PM70.exe file. It runs better than a dream, not a single problem will arise.
Posted by: Ole | March 09, 2013 at 03:47 AM